He has a pointless upgrade (other than making him 4 nora cheaper) is to expensive up front (even if you take the pointless upgrade) and lacks a defining reason to include in either Lich or Zombie bgs.
Ok, not just me then. Also, if you're referring to Warding, it odes have a point - it means the Lich Knight is immune to spells if and when he revives. Without it, we have the odd scenario where the Dark Knight is immune to enemy spells, but the supposedly-superior Lich Knight isn't.
If you want to abuse his temporary (I hope) absense of warding/bloodless, run him with UD. In ff liches servitors are better, in split liches you better go with skellylich mix. In zombies runnable, but nothing special.
(warding, Surge Lich, resistance phsyical 3) (Throw Axe, Decapitating blow, Rabid 2) So far surge his connection to lichees is surge. Warding is not totally useless in that it keeps him shielded after he has risen (when he no longer benefits from lichborn's 'can't be targeted by spells' clause). The only thing that seems off (besides being just another surger) is the aforementioned warding and the decapitating blow which just seems like it could be on something more thematic. What do people think of this change to his upgrades... (Zombie Apocalypse, Surge Lich, Resistance physical 3) (Throw Axe, Rabid 2, Evil Aura) Also are his stats fine? IMHO he seems like he just needs some upgrade tweaks.
Really though, it feels like something he should just have - rather than an upgrade. To me, he just feels badly overcosted. I mean, he lost: - 1pt of damage - 2hps - 1pt of speed - Resistance Physical (Rank 2) - Warded - ZA You now can have Surge: Lich or Resistance: Physical, but not both. And yet, after all those nerfs, his cost (which was already pretty damn high) actually went up. Really though, I think SPD 6 hurts the most - aside from all the other problems with losing speed, it also means he's a lot slower getting back into the fight once he revives.
If he seems like he's to pricey and slow then Lich born is probably the offending ability since it respawns him. What would you say to rebuffing lich born to give +1 spd back? Would you consider him to be about right then?
The problem with him, is that he's so horribly backloaded. He's such a huge tempo hit and doesn't bring anything to the board. I'd like to know how lich-born is costed, because at the moment it seems like they just add the cost of lich knight to the cost of dark knight without taking the tempo hit into consideration.
His cost does seem like a real issue. Even pre-revamp, he required a massive investment - but at least he brought quite a bit to the table. Speed 7 let him get to the thick of things relatively quickly, and Physical Resistance 2 made him reasonably resilient. It meant you could use him as a tank early on, and made his lich form appropriately difficult to kill. Now, he's lost a ton of stuff, and his cost has actually increased. Even taking into account the general revamp changes, he just feels badly overpriced. -1 SPD is a massive hit on a champion that needs to be deployed twice, and having to choose between physical resistance and surge lich just makes him feel far too fragile in a lich deck. As an aside, I wonder how a Lich Knight would be costed alone.
I'd rather see a strong first form and a weaker lich knight (if it meant spawning where he died like a rider champ). I don't think the tempo hit caused by the lich knight spawn mechanic has ever been properly factored into his cost.
